Queen T

An original character that's been rolling around in my head for a while. Time to bring her to life.

I really enjoyed the Coon & Friends trilogy of South Park episodes and how Cartman was so manipulative he could even bring Cthulhu to heel. Wanted to make a similar character, so started thinking of the most manipulative people on Earth. Happened to re-watch Mean Girls.

We have a woman who has managed to create a portal to a dark dimension in her southern hemisphere, and now toys with its heart and manipulates it to do her bidding. As a result she's stuck in a state of arrested development (another great show).

Also a little rundown of the process I went through to create this artwork. It's pretty much the same approach taken with all my artworks:

1/ As this idea has been kicking around around for so long, no thumbnail sketches are done. It's straight into Daz3D to get a virtual mannequin ready for reference. The character models don't hold together so well when pushed to more extreme poses, but it's enough to get started. After this, the bodybuilder slider will be used if more help with muscle positioning is required.

2/ Using Mischief a quick sketch is done to work out a few quirks from Daz3D. Also start throwing ideas about clothing and hair down. Add in any extra items or characters that would take too much time to create in 3D. This process is really quick as I want to get into vector as soon as possible so don't want to waste time here.

3/ Quick searches online to find any reference that may be helpful when drawing. It's at this time I realize the hair concept from the sketch may not be what I want. With the school girl look, I'm concerned she'll look too much like Junko Enoshima from Danganronpa. Was really more after that typical western bimbo school girl look, so decide to make a change.

4/ Into Affinity Designer to start the vector work. Base lines first. These are done by using the pencil and pen tools and tracing over the quick sketch. Some adjustments are made to the proportions and the lines are shaped closer to their final form. Not a lot of time is spent here as proportions tend to change as the artwork evolves.

5/ Face and head details are normally first. This is so I have time to let them rest a bit and I can come back and do adjustments throughout the rest of the piece. Also figured all that hair would make this the slowest thing to draw. So much hair. So, so much damn hair. I still think she needed more hair though.

6/ The body is next. and yep, took less time than the head and all that hair. I've really been enjoying the traditional artists that use textured masking tape cutouts in their art for textile patterns. Wanted to do a digital version of that here with the tartan. Don't care if it flattens the image, I just like the look.

7/ The tentacles in the Borderlands artwork a while back felt a little free handed and sloppy at the end. Decided to take some more time here.

8/ Draw in the lines proper and make them a little wonky so they look more organic than the guide circles. @harveyjamz's artwork on Consentacle was a massive help here.

9/ A colour palette is worked out. Softer pastels are the choice for this one, with the big garish red heart in the background because the piece was apparently lacking subtlety. The original plan was to have back lighting but after seeing the flats by themselves, I was convinced.

10/ The final artwork shown in Outline View. Love that the unclipped tartan pattern looks like a perfectly placed censorship bar.